Top Tips to Get to Yes!

1. Control Your Self-Talk

Researchers have found that the average person thinks as many as 50,000 thoughts a day. Many of those thoughts are negative: ‘I’m not management material… I’ll never lose weight… It doesn’t matter what I do, nothing ever works out for me.’

Psychologists call this ‘victim language.’ Victim language keeps you in a victim state of mind. It is a form of self-hypnosis that lulls you into a belief that you are unlovable and incompetent.

To get what you want from life, you need to give up this victim language and start talking to yourself like a winner: ‘I can do it… I know there is a solution… I am smart enough and strong enough to figure this out… Everything I eat helps me maintain my perfect weight.’

Your subconscious mind is like the crew of a ship. You are its captain. It is your job to give the crew orders. And when you do this, the crew takes everything you say literally.

The crew (your subconscious) has no sense of humour. It just blindly follows orders. When you say, ‘Everything I eat goes straight to my hips,’ the crew hears that as an order: Take everything she eats, turn it into fat and put it on her hips!

On the other hand, if you say, ‘Everything I eat helps me maintain my perfect body weight,’ the crew will begin to make that into reality by helping you make better food choices, exercise, and maintain the right metabolism rate for you body.

This power of your subconscious mind is the reason you must become vigilant and pay attention to your spoken and internal statements. Most people don’t realize they are committing negative self-talk, which is why it is best to enlist another person – a friend or coach – to help you monitor your speaking.

2. Use Affirmations To Build Self-Confidence

One of the most powerful tools for building self-worth and self-confidence is the repetition of positive statements until they become a natural part of the way you think.

These ‘affirmations’ act to crowd out and replace the negative orders you have been sending your crew (your subconscious mind) all these years. When you wake up, lie still for two minutes and repeat the following:

• I am (bloody) brilliant
• I am great
• I am unique
• I am incredible
• I like me
• I am worth it
• I am highly intelligent
• I am attracting all the right people into my life.

Do this because no one else may say it to you during the day. Valuing yourself is the single most important thing you can do to make your life – and career – work.

3. Be Happy Now

Rhonda Byrne, creator of The Secret wrote:
‘I want to let you in on a secret to The Secret. The shortcut to anything you want in your life is to BE and FEEL happy now! It is the fastest way to bring money and anything else you want into your life.’

Don’t make the mistake of putting happiness on hold. And one of the quickest ways to get happier quickly is to count your blessings.

Absolutely. List ten things you are grateful to have in your life, right now.

And lifting your morale, raising your vibration, lightening your spirit, will attract more opportunities and good fortune than a miserable outlook. Funny that.

4. Get Over Failure

I have never thought I couldn’t do something. Not everything I’ve done has worked out. So what? I’d rather be a person who has a go than someone who’s too scared to try.

Be prepared to fail and learn from your failures. And, for goodness sake, park them. Don’t cart a failure/failures around with you as a warning to all or as a punishment to yourself.

You had the guts, spirit, ambition, motivation, decency, or whatever it was, to have a go. Brilliant. Respect! Lessons learnt. Onwards!

5. Get On With It

Imagine I’ve waved my magic wand. You believe in yourself. You have a deep-seated feeling that you can do it. You are good enough. Now what? What do you want? Not sure?

Grab a pen and a scrap of paper – right now. Without thinking about it, write this down – ‘If I believed in myself I’d ….’

Complete the sentence as often as you like. You might get one answer; you might get heaps; you might get one or more repeated. Now what?

You decide.

I’d encourage you to get on with it. The need for fulfilment won’t go away because the country is having an economic downturn. And, at the risk of repeating a cliché – you’re more likely to be successful and prosper doing something you enjoy and your heart is in than sticking at something that makes you miserable – ‘for security.’